Originally posted by Don Dumb
I like what hear. How did he trade? What made him enter and exit?
I will answer by oversimplifying....so don't take this and bet your mortgage payments on it...it is just the very most basic boiled down and concise description I can think of to save time. Of course it is not going to work without fine tuning and some actual thinking:
He made a list of strongest stocks and weakest stocks.
He determined this by relative strength (market up 1%, group up 2%, issue up 3%....just example numbers for the sake of simplification: revese for weak stocks)
He then narrowed the list to stocks that were trading on pace to be at least at 100% of their average daily volumes. Stocks that were thickly traded only. Not stocks that were relatively strong on great volume if the stock was not normally thick. Not a stock (for an extreme example) that normally traded 30,000 shares a day and was trading 60,000 this day. 200% of not enough is still not enough).
He would buy stocks when they were 20-30% off their highs, and short stocks that were 20-30% off their lows. (Of the day)
He would determine the price he wanted to enter the trades, put in limit orders, and just leave them. If he got filled, he got filled at the price he wanted. If not, then he never felt he "missed" a trade.
He also had targets for profits and he had targets for stops. He used percentages their too. He seldom traded nasdaq, and I seldom traded listed, and it was a long time ago that I discussed trading with him, so I can't remember his exact exit strategies. We never actually worked together, so I did not get to see his trades.
Now that is pretty much the basic strategy he used. I for one could not trade quite that way. If I wanted to buy a stock I could not just leave a limit order in and walk away. I would be uncomfortable about it because conditions may have changed by the time I got hit. So this did not suit my style or my personality. He, however, could put in his orders and go to the race track and be comfortable. So obviously the way he excecuted his style was not for everyone. But his approach, his discipline was the backbone of a lot of the most successful daytraders ever.
Simple and straigtforward. He believed in relative strength and good volume. I wonder how he would have done in todays market. I guess he would have adapted. Sadly, we will never know. Maybe he would have just waited out the market until it came to him. That would be my guess. He certainly could have afforded to.